A Library of Stories Old and New

Category Archives: Memoirs

Once upon a time, there was a snake. She was a nice snake, but everyone, except for one girl, thought she was dangerous. The snake and the girl were best friends, but one day someone found the snake and killed her. This made the girl very sad, and so when she made a video, she put a hissing sound at the end to remember the snake.

This was the first of many stories I made up that made something less scary for me. This was important, because as an autistic child, I got scared very easily, especially by sudden sounds. As I know now, the hissing sound at the end of my favorite video was actually caused by static, but my parents could not find a way to explain it to me that made it less scary. That was why I took matters into my own hands and told the story of the snake.

There was another instance where I made up a story that also involved static. This time, it was static on one of my dad’s audio cassette tapes, which made a thumping noise before the music started. I asked my mom to explain that static to me, but as before, she couldn’t explain it in a way that made it less scary. So once again I made up my own story to explain it. I had recently received a snow globe from my grandparents for Christmas. I loved that snow globe, but sometimes I dropped it and worried it would break. It was after dropping my snow globe many times that I decided the static thumping was a recording of my snow globe falling. When I told my mom this, she helped me make up a story:

Once there was a girl named Doniela. Her daddy was a musician, which means when he went to work, he played music and recorded it on tapes. One day as he wrote a new song, he listened for the right drum beat to put in it. No matter what he banged on or clapped together, it wouldn’t make the right sound. Then, suddenly, Doniela dropped her snow globe! Both she and her daddy screamed, but for different reasons. Doniela came to her daddy crying, “Oh, Daddy, did it break? Did it break?” Her daddy, however, said, “I just heard the perfect drumbeat for my new song!” He asked to borrow her snow globe, but she was worried it really would break this time.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “I will wrap it up in rubber and drop it very softly.” So she let him, and he wrote a beautiful song with the sound of the falling snow globe. When it was finished, he gave Doniela back her beloved snow globe, which was good as new. He also brought his new tape home and played it for Doniela and her mommy. Doniela enjoyed the tape until suddenly, she heard a loud thump! This startled her, and she ran crying to her daddy.

“Don’t worry, Doniela!” he said. “It’s just your beautiful snow globe.” This made Doniela and me feel much better.

As an autistic child, I was scared of most loud or startling noises. Most of these sounds were on either the radio or tapes, specifically Raffi tapes. There were two songs on one of my Raffi tapes that either started or ended very softly, and thus startled me when they all of a sudden got louder. There was also the song “Joshua Giraffe,” which had some very strange laughter at the end. Since that laughter is kind of similar to Santa’s laugh, this song made me afraid of Santa Clause later on. It also made me dislike any part of a Raffi song sung by the same chorus that did this laughter, since I recognized their voices.

The sounds on the radio that scared me included pauses, a baby crying in a lullaby, and voices coming from a long distance, though the latter stopped being scary and started being funny very quickly. I started being afraid of pauses one evening when my dad and I were dancing in the kitchen. The first pause I didn’t notice, but my dad explained it to me anyway, telling me what a pause was. I was confused, thinking he meant the paws on a kitty cat. Then, when the music stopped again, he mentioned that it was a pause. I still thought he was talking about kitty cat paws until the music came on again and startled me. I was frightened, and the fact that I was expecting soft kitty cat paws just made it worse. From then on I did not like songs with pauses. This was especially true of instrumental music, because when a song had words I understood, I learned to expect when the person would stop singing and start again. With instrumental music I had no voice to follow, so I never knew when the music would start or stop.